the district for great force of character and ready wit, and two uncles being founders of one of the earliest cotton firms in Manchester, that of Adam & George Murray. The father of the three was a Moffat man, descended, on the maternal side, from the Welshes of Corehead, and thus tracing kindred with the Reformer Knox.

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Our poet was educated at the parish school of his native burgh, and passed thence to Edinburgh University. During the first session he gained an essay prize in the Humanity Class, and this brought him under the notice of Professor Pillans, who got him appointed to a tutorship in Ross-shire. Here he became acquainted with Hugh Miller, and acquired a passion for the study of botany, which was to him. a source of life-long pleasure. Later on he gained a prize also in the class of Professor Wilson, and when the great "Christopher" paid a visit to Galloway, the old student became his host and guide. after license as a preacher of the Gospel he received an appointment as assistant and successor to the Rev. Gavin Cullen, minister of Balmaclellan-the presentation being from the Crown, and the first granted by Queen Victoria. The "ten years' conflict " was then raging, and in this the young minister followed stedfastly what was called the "Constitutional" party, and adhered to the Establishment. After the Disruption he was transferred to the parish of Girthon, in the same county, and there laboured with marked success for eight years. Thereafter, by a strange coincidence, he was again called to Balmaclellan-on this occasion as full minister, in succession to the Rev. William Wilson. There in his much-loved Glenkens he continued a faithful pastor until death-April, 1881, in the sixty-ninth year of his age, and forty-fourth of his ministry. Brimful of life and energy, he was not a man whose influence could be confined simply to

his own parish, and having a marked business talent, and being prompt and thorough in everything he took in hand, he, in ecclesiastical, county, and local mattters, held important offices-being clerk, for instance, of both Presbytery and Synod.

To an active mind he added the widest sympathies, taking an intelligent and enthusiastic interest in everything and everybody that came in his way. Of his love of botany we have spoken. Hardly a hill or glen exists in Galloway which he did not explore. At prosaic agriculture he was an adept-his glebe being under model management, and his entailed estate splendidly developed. As an antiquary, he was most zealous, and earned the honour of "Corresponding Member" of the Edinburgh Society, being more intimate than any other in his day with the legends, manners, and curious nooks and characters of Upper Galloway.

One of such varied gifts and information was an object of interest on all occasions. His public speeches were full of individuality, acuteness, and much of the characteristic humour of the Scot. In private life, and in the seclusion of his hospitable manse (where his originality and ideas of beauty were materially reflected), his conversation and geniality were charming-a large fund of anecdote .being always at command, and his lively wit often breaking out in playful squibs of verse. His devotion to the muses came out in his sermons, which were often a-glow with poetic fervour, abounding in allusions to nature, and to the romantic side of old Testament story.

His pieces were mostly fugitive; none of them ambitious in idea, but simply suggested by local lore, and the scenes and events around him. The style is in all cases simple, and pleasingly unaffected in its natural flow. In broad Scotch he was especially successful, graphic and pithy, with not a little pathos

and pawky humour. No regular volume of his works has as yet appeared, although it is understood that there is one forth-coming; but his contributions to the local press were numerous, and several poems were occasionally printed by him for private circulation, acquiring, thereby, much popularity throughout the province. A number of these will appear in the volume, including "Helen: the Welsh Harper, poem of tender and touching beauty, and "The Upland Vale," a descriptive poem, proving that the author cultivated the muse at the pure fountain of Nature, and breathing all the freshness of its source.

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We give, as examples, "Sarah Rae," a suggestive ballad about a weak-minded woman on the Poor's Roll of the author's parish, and " Youth and Age." Also "Our Captain," to the memory of the youthful Wellwood Maxwell, Esq., of Glenlee, captain of the 3rd K.R.V., to which the poet was chaplain.

A LINK OF THE PAST.

In cities large, 'mid hum and whirl,
They twist the silken line,

And threads of cotton, flax, and wool,
A thousand spindles twine.

And there behold the wondrous loom
Weave well the fairy thread-
Yield raiment fit to all the world,
And give to Labour bread.

All honour to the scheming head-
God speed the willing hand-
That make our country what she is,
A rich and happy land!

The Scottish matron seldom now
Brings out the thrifty wheel :

No wool to comb, no fleece to row,

No hanks of yarn to reel.

And yet those days were days of worth,
When such sights could be seen

As maids and mothers bleaching webs
Of "

snaw-white on the green,—

When in the cheerful winter nights

The " rowans " long they span,
For cloth for " wear for wife and child,
And plaids for the "gudeman."

In yonder cottage, by the stream
That wanders through the moor,
Lives Sarah Rae: ah! weak of mind,
Most feeble, old, and poor.

When yet a child her mother saw
(What does not mother see?)
That heaven had sent that feeble one
To hang about her knee.

Old songs she sang to that weak one.
They sang and span together:
This on her wheel, that on a stick-
The daughter and the mother.

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'Distaffs," she said, were things of eld, More ancient than the wheel;

And ladies grand in lordly ha'

Could twirl the spindle weel."

'Twas but a toy-a thing to please
And teach the lassie thrift.
The art to spin, the joy to sing,
Was that fond mother's gift.

And now for three score years and ten,
On dark and sunny day,

With a potato and a stick,

Poor Sarah spins away.

She spins and croons in wondrous way,
Draws out the canny thread,
Winds countless clues, knits mittens braw,
And hose for times of need.

To me it is a thing most strange,
When old things glide away,
That none the present to the past
Can link, like Sarah Rae.

One of God's creatures, old and weak,
Alone the thread can twine

As did our mothers in the days
And evenings of Langsyne.

Let none deride! The dress home-spun
Was firmer far than fine;

And maidens fair and manly breasts

Were clad in it langsyne.

The proudest dames in Scotland wide
Taught, in the days of yore,

Their daughters to prepare such robes
As Bruce and Wallace wore.

And need we tell what lovers true
Have worn the Lowland plaid,
And wrapt its folds with tender care
Around the Lowland maid?

Customs may die, but music lives!
Songs of the rock and loom
Will please, console, and flourish fresh
Until the day of doom.

O, "Tarry Woo is ill to spin,"
And "Jenny dang the Weaver "
Are airs to please while waters flow,
And foam is on the river.

While Scotchmen live, down manly cheeks
The pearlins oft will row

At songs like these--"The Cairdin' o't,"
And "Weary Pund o' Tow."

My lay is o'er. The present Age
Matured the art of spinning.
Poor Sarah lingers at the source,
And knows but the beginning.

Yet to begin to twist one thread
Was an invention clever.

Who first did so? The chain here breaks :
That link is lost for ever.

YOUTH AND AGE.

A hardy boy, I leaped or ran,

Or climbed in sport the linden tree,-
My shinny plied,-my peerie span ;
Where are the boys who played with me?
We swam the stream,-the pike we slew,-
Or fished for pearls in distant Dee-
For nuts, we ranged Knocknarling glen ;
Where are the lads who roved with me?

I climbed each hill that frowns on Ken,-
Could name each plant that decks the lea,-
At school still strove to lead the van;
Where are the youths who strove with me?

My brothers where? In foreign lands
Far, far from home and Ashburn Tree;